women of color

Friday Reads: Women of Color

This week we’re celebrating Women’s History Month, and International Women’s Day (3/8), with books by women of color.  Women’s history is still under-discussed and undervalued, doubly so when it comes to the history of women of color.  So we’re highlighting some of our recent favorite titles, bringing these women’s stories and perspectives to the front, where they belong. 

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  Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste NgLITTLE FIRES EVERYWHERE by Celeste Ng Little Fires Everywhere explores the weight of secrets, the nature of art and identity, and the ferocious pull of motherhood – and the danger of believing that following the rules can avert disaster.     Behold the Dreamers (Oprah's Book Club) by Imbolo MbueBEHOLD THE DREAMERS by Imbolo Mbue A compulsively readable debut novel about marriage, immigration, class, race, and the trapdoors in the American Dream—the unforgettable story of a young Cameroonian couple making a new life in New York just as the Great Recession upends the economy.     Lucky Boy by Shanthi SekaranLUCKY BOY by Shanthi Sekaran  In this astonishing novel, Shanthi Sekaran gives voice to the devotion and anguish of motherhood through two women bound together by their love for one boy. Soli, a young undocumented Mexican woman in Berkeley, CA, finds that motherhood offers her an identity in a world where she’s otherwise invisible. When she is placed in immigrant detention, her son comes under the care of Kavya, an Indian-American wife overwhelmed by her own impossible desire to have a child. As Soli fights for her son, Kavya builds her love on a fault line, her heart wrapped around someone else’s child.   The Wedding Date by Jasmine GuilloryTHE WEDDING DATE by Jasmine Guilory A groomsman and his last-minute guest are about to discover if a fake date can go the distance in this fun and flirty multicultural romance debut.       Homegoing by Yaa GyasiHOMEGOING by Yaa Gyasi Ghana, eighteenth century: two half sisters are born into different villages, each unaware of the other. One will marry an Englishman and lead a life of comfort in the palatial rooms of the Cape Coast Castle. The other will be captured in a raid on her village, imprisoned in the very same castle, and sold into slavery. Homegoing follows the parallel paths of these sisters and their descendants through eight generations: from the Gold Coast to the plantations of Mississippi, from the American Civil War to Jazz Age Harlem.   COMING IN APRIL! The Girl Who Smiled Beads by Clemantine Wamariya and Elizabeth WeilTHE GIRL WHO SMILED BEADS by Clemantine Wmariya and Elizabeth Weil Clemantine Wamariya was six years old when her mother and father began to speak in whispers, when neighbors began to disappear, and when she heard the loud, ugly sounds her brother said were thunder. In 1994, she and her fifteen-year-old sister, Claire, fled the Rwandan massacre and spent the next six years migrating through seven African countries, searching for safety—perpetually hungry, imprisoned and abused, enduring and escaping refugee camps, finding unexpected kindness, witnessing inhuman cruelty. They did not know whether their parents were dead or alive.   FOR YOUNGER READERS The Night Diary by Veera HiranandaniTHE NIGHT DIARY by Veera Hiranandani In the vein of Inside Out and Back Again and The War That Saved My Life comes a poignant, personal, and hopeful tale of India’s partition, and of one girl’s journey to find a new home in a divided country.     COMING IN MAY! Amal Unbound by Aisha SaeedAMAL UNBOUND by Aisha Saeed Aisha Saeed’s middle-grade debut tells the compelling story of a girl’s fight to regain her life and dreams after being forced into indentured servitude.     There are many, many more books to be found in the edelweiss collection Women!
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